To Send DD on a School Trip

Our DD is nearly 9 and this year they are having a school residential trip for 2 nights to an activity centre. DD really wants to go as all her friends are going and I think it would be great for her too.

DH on the other hand says there is no way she is allowed to go, that she is just a baby and that she can't be away from us overnight.

I think he is being totally unreasonable, she isn't a baby and if she doesn't go not only will she miss out on a great experience but she will feel left out because all her friends are going.

We have argued and argued about it he wont budge in but I am now thinking of just paying the deposit and saying she can go anyway in the hope I can convince him later.

Would that be wrong? I know it will cause more arguments but she has been so upset at the thought of not being able to go.

I missed a school trip when I was in Year 5/6 (can't remember exactly which) because my parents couldn't afford to send me. I was the only one who didn't go. It didn't scar me for life, BUT I had been on Brownie Pack Holiday before, so I had stayed away from home.

I hope you and your DH can resolve this and that when your DD comes home brimming with excitement and wonderful tales of her trip, DH will see it was worth the worry.

"I live in a country that is not my 'home' country (so, similar to your DH) and I will not let my DC go on residential school trips during the primary years as in my adopted country, adults' attitudes to children are so much at odds with mine, I would be very worried.

I accept to send my children to school here, to follow the rules, to slot in with what most parents here do. But I won't let other people take her on a residential trip as that is too far out of my comfort zone. I already make a Herculean effort to fit it here.

What's culturally acceptable in one place is not necessarily acceptable elsewhere.

Maybe your husband feels the same. "

Greythorne, that really is how he sees it, he isn't just purely being difficult, it is just really beyond his understanding why we in England would want to let our children go away without us as that isn't what he has ever come accross before.

"How can you even stay married to someone with these kind of values?? <baffled> "

Really Numberlock, as you have no idea about my marriage apart from this one thing that we are in disagreement about I don't think your comment is of any help at all!

Imo the "everybody has their own parenting style" is fine as long as the dc are little: a 6mo or a toddler isn't really going to notice if he is different from everybody else.

Once your dc get towards the secondary school stage, you have to take into account that it isn't just about your style of parenting versus other people's style of parenting: your dc will also start developing ideas of their own as to the kind of people they want to be.

Obviously, you need to stick to moral principles, of course, whatever happens, but I also think you need to distinguish between principles and parenting preferences.

My parents weren't particularly good at doing this: they tended to treat everything that was specific to them- their honesty, their reluctance to socialise with others, their hard work ethic, their love of the opera, their fondness for the sea and boating, their dislike of modern culture- as if they were all moral principles.

Didn't matter to my younger brother and me, who were happy to go along with the opera and keeping ourselves to ourselves, but it was horribly confusing for my elder brother who had totally different preferences and really was more comfortable around his peers and their pursuits, but felt inferior and ashamed about it.

I have tried to be more open-minded about the fact that e.g. my dc want to socialise in a way I never wanted. We discuss the risks but I would never try to hold them back just because I can't see the value of what they want. They are old enough to know what they want and my experience has to be used to help them to do it safely rather than tell them it is worthless.

As a foreign parent I can kind of empathise with the OP's dh's reaction of "Oh I don't see the need for this because there is no need for it in my culture".

It's a kind of desperate clinging on to the life you left behind, the parent you thought you'd be (in your country), the child you though you'd have (one that belonged to your culture).

But really, it is very parent centered, all about us rather than the child. As foreign parents, we have to accept that once we have chosen to have children in another culture, that is the culture they are growing up in and they need as many opportunities to be part of that as they would to be part of our culture, had we stayed in our own country.

I think parenting is generally quite scary but we decide to direct our particular fears to one or two situations, because that makes the overall fear more controllable/manageable. For example we have decided that strangers are dangerous and that children are at particular risk when they are not being cared for by close family members.

My partner does child protection work and I have volunteered on a phoneline for people who have survived abuse. So I'm aware that far, far more children get abused by family members than - say - strangers abducting them. So I'm not unduly worried by school trips. One of my most treasured possessions is the excited postcard my child wrote me from her Year 5 residentials.

I think one of the most common ways in which children are hurt relates to road traffic accidents. However most parents will take their children out in the car thinking, 'This is a perfectly safe thing to do'. There are no agonised Mumsnet debates on, 'Would you drive your kids up the busy motorway to go to the theme park.'

I expect you would be dreading it-she is going to be very upset and she will have to spend her time with another class with everyone asking her why she didn't go. They must be teachers at school that she is going with -are you saying they will be abusive? that you don't trust them? If I was still a Brownie leader I would not be at all happy at giving up my time for free when the mother didn't trust me on a camp. I can cope with 8yr olds-and if I couldn't I would phone the parent. It will come up more and more in the next few years.

I will be the lone voice agreeing with you husband, my dd is 8 and I certainly won't let her go on a residential next year, overprotective maybe, there's still not a chance in hell I will pack my child off to spend 2 nights with adults I don't know, and she doesn't do sleepovers at school friends either, only with very close family, it's never come up so far but I am dreading next year

DD is going on an overnight trip this week. She is fragile at the moment (CAHMS referral pending which school know about) She may wet the bed (school know), is highly unlikely to brush either hair or teeth but keeping her off the trip would be incredibly isolating for her. Yes, I will worry about her but she needs to share experiences with her school friends. I trust her teachers and she will be less than an hour's drive away. Talk to the head or deputy and make an appointment for him to see them.

My son [English] is married to a Turkish lady and they have a dd who is now 13.The school have had at least two residentials to places of historic interest.Parents were given the option to go along and pay for hotel accommodation nearby.Some did but most didn't.My dd-i-l is a teacher at the school so went along anyway but she told me she would definitely have let dgd go without hesitation.Dgd regularly has sleepovers with her friends and they with her.She has had overnights with relatives since she was a baby.In Turkish culture it is unusual for children not to stay with their grandparents fairly frequently.I know Turkish fathers tend to be very very protective of their daughters but I have have never heard of one objecting to all sleepovers.

It's not particularly him I was talking about Numberlock. I was just saddened by posters upthread accusing each other of not loving their children or suffocating them because people made different judgements about how much to let go and when.

I really hope the OP manages to get her DH to see the benefit of the activity and they can come to an agreement that works for their particular family, including the child concerned.

Add me to the list of people judging him too if you like. There's no valid reason for his objections so is the OP going to face this every time the poor daughter gets the chance to try a new experience?

What will happen when her friends start having sleep overs? Or she wants to join brownies and go on camping trips? Etc etc.